The 20th annual Kling Anderson Lecture will be presented on November 12, 2014 by Dr. Joel Brown of the USDA NRCS located at the Jornada Experimental Range near Las Cruces, NM.

Dr. Brown was raised on a livestock operation in southern Oklahoma. His formal education includes a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture/Botany from Fort Hays State University (KS), a Master’s Degree in Grazing Ecology from Texas A&M University and a Ph.D. in Shrubland Ecology from Texas A&M University. His professional journey includes 5 years as an NRCS Field and Area Range Conservationist in Kansas, 5 years as California NRCS State Rangeland Specialist, 6 years with CSIRO (Australia) as a Project Leader and Senior Principal Research Scientist and 5 years as NRCS Global Change Program Leader.

Joel will present the lecture titled Using Ecological Sites for Land Management: Legacy, Promise and Reality. Using Ecological Site Descriptions as a way to organize and communicate information relevant to rangeland management has gained widespread support over the past two decades. The Ecological Site concept offers opportunities to scientists, advisers, land-managers and policy-makers to link research, policy and implementation to improve the quality of decisions at all levels, but there are substantial challenges in changing existing ideas and practices and to dealing with rapidly emerging challenges. He will discuss some of our failures, successes, opportunities and pitfalls as we try to create a new framework for land management.